Homemade Linguine with Mushroom, Thyme and Lemon

When I look at my newly-bought pasta machine, I can't help smiling like a proud Wall Street banker who has just nailed a great deal. I'm serious, I still think it's one of the best kitchen investments I've ever made! It has made life much easier for me, especially when my life now pretty much circles around pasta-making from scratch. 

Aren't they pretty? Hm, sometimes I really wonder if I actually think they're pretty just because I made them. But look! Delicate and highlighted with fine sand-like semolina, the unintended twists and curls are just like gentle waves stretching across the moon-lit ocean. 


Linguine is spaghetti squashed flat, best served with light vegetable sauces. Introduced to this pasta dish through the beautiful Nigella Lawson's cooking show a few years ago, I've been making this since then whenever I want a tasty meal real quick. Really, there's nothing to cook apart from the pasta! The mushrooms are served fresh. 

You know this pasta recipe is a keeper just by looking at the genius polygamy of mushroom, thyme and lemon. Like tomato and basil, mushroom and thyme, and thyme and lemon are best friends matched by heaven. So nothing can go wrong here. Perfect timing for me to share with you a little trick I recently learnt from Jamie Oliver on his 30-minute meals series. Before you pick the thyme leaves off the sprigs, wake them up by dipping them in hot water. It takes less than a second but you can immediately smell the thyme then. So good.

Creamy Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin soup is the ultimate comfort food. It is rainy and bleak now in Hong Kong, and like sunshine, this soup is exactly what it takes to warm you up and drive away the gloominess.

I found that making creamy soup is not just about putting everything together in the blender. The trick required to turn an ordinary creamy soup into one that is truly fantastic, is to roast the ingredients beforehand. Roasting caramelizes and wakes up the inherent flavors of the ingredients to their max while adding to them a subtle nutty flavor. So next time you make your creamy soup, be it tomato or asparagus, roast them first and you'll definately push your soup to a whole new level!

Homemade Farfalle

When people tell you that making your own pasta is extremely satisfying and no rocket science, believe them. I can verify this. For every 100g of flour, you just need 1 egg and a pinch of salt. There's really nothing more to remember!

But when these people, especially the Italian nonne, tell you that it's real quick and easy peasy, don't blindly believe them like I did. Well, actually you can! If you have a pasta machine, it's quick and easy. Without it, it's not the end of the world, but it will require a lot more effort. I will tell you what happened to me without a pasta machine in just a minute.

My recent pasta-making frenzy was actually provoked by a TV programme, Simply Italian, presented by a gorgeous, young Welsh-Italian, Michela Chiappa. In just 4 short episodes, she demonstrates how to cook the Italian way. From pastas of different shapes and colors, to delicious sauces and outstanding fillings, she never fails to impress! Unlike my beloved professionally-trained Little Paris Kitchen goddess, Rachel Khoo, Michela is not chained to the stove at all. Instead, she's a full-time marketing consultant. But thanks to her Italian upbringing, her family has been making pasta for generations and she's been taught all there is to know to cook and eat just like Italians.

After watching the show, I felt the urge to make my own pasta again. Since I was told by MIchela how easy and quick everything could be, I decided to go big and mass produce both green-hinted and orange farfalle and ravioli. At that time, I had absolutely no idea how ridiculously ambitious I was to have planned to accomplish all these without the help of a pasta machine! 

So on and on I kneaded and rolled, tried so hard to flatten the dough which just by nature, loves to retreat and shrink back into their original size and thickness. Phew, when I finally managed to roll them thin and nice, bits of it somehow stuck to the station and I had to stretch and carefully pull it off the table, and rarely would I not tore it apart or rip some holes out of it. This is absolutely normal and still fun if you're making pasta portions enough for two people. But bear in mind that I was mass producing both farfalle and very thin ravioli, of different colors too! So without a pasta machine, it took me around 5 hours of rolling, cutting and shaping in total. I was completely exhausted, with sore arms and shoulders I walked to my bed like a zombie at 9:30p.m. And in just a day, I dropped 2 pounds. 

Please don't get me wrong, I am not writing this to discourage you to make your own pasta. I am in fact encouraging you to do so while sparing you from any unnecessary pain and sweat! In short, if you don't have a pasta machine, it's fine, but be realistic and make limited portions of thicker pasta like fettuccine, as opposed to ravioli sheets that have to be really thin to be tasty. However, if possible, please buy a pasta machine! It's seriously one of the best kitchen investments I've ever made! It's not expensive, and I bought it from Pantry Magic in Hong Kong. Now, I can easily mass produce pastas of different sizes and shapes from scratch in just half an hour! You can now tell that there will be many posts on pastas up soon.

Baked Sweet Potato Wedges

Lately I've been making a lot a lot of pasta, of different shapes and colors. But before I bombard you with those posts, I'm sharing with you my little experiment on this quick, scrumptious and flavorful snack (for me, breakfast). Baked sweet potatoes wedges. Oh yes, they are flavorful, they are sweet and salty, sharp and hot!

I did not create this recipe. Credits to the Anthropologist in the Kitchen- Zhuang Zu Yi. Zhuang wrote a book The Anthropologist in the Kitchen (in Chinese) on her culinary experiences in the Massachusetts Cambridge Culinary School and a fancy hotel in Hong Kong after quitting her PhD study in Anthropology to pursue her passion in cooking. Ever since I read her book a few years back, I have become a fan of hers. Okok, I admit, I am a fan of a handful. First Jamie Oliver, then Rachel Khoo, now Zhuang and a few more coming. But they're all very special, creative and live in their kitchens.

Ok now, back to the sweet potatoes. Zhuang shared this recipe on her blog. She suggested adding honey, orange juice, salt and pepper and some chilli powder. At first I was quite skeptical about the sweet-sour-spicy combination. For me, it's either sweet and sour, sour and hot, or even sweet and hot, but just not that trio! Right? 

So putting on this geeky hat, I decided to do a little experiment. I made 4 batches of wedges, a batch of each combination. My conclusion is that the sweetness from the honey and the citrusy twang from the orange juice are a heavenly match. Also, baking them together caramelizes the sweet potatoes, yummy! So, each of them is indispensable. Whereas, the chili powder, it's a "nice-to-have", gives the wedges a little kick, but not necessary. Unless spiciness is your thing, I would suggest you to skip it and let the sweet and tangy caramel take the stage all to themselves and melt in your mouth.

Crab, Mango and Avocado Salad

This salad stack makes an amazing appetizer. Great colour combination, just looking at it makes one happy, refreshed and the excitement over it can sustain throughout the rest of the meal. I do think that only by layering the ingredients elegantly like this can do this salad justice. But, not having a cylindrical mold/ cookie cutter should not be an excuse to not recreate this beauty at home. You can always have this salad layered in short tumbler glasses or even martini glasses. Really, whatever works!

Another reason I urge you to try this out has to do with its fantastic taste and fulfilling mouth feel. First, the avocado gives to this salad the mild nutty flavour and makes a rich and creamy versatile base that is neither heavy nor greasy. The salad is then elevated by the tropical sweetness of the mango, which if finely diced, presents itself in a soft, pulpy texture that quickly melts in your mouth. Finally, the firm yet delicate crab meat, combined with lime juice, breathes in that gorgeous air of freshness from the sea.

Marble Tea Eggs 茶葉蛋

Happy Chinese New Year! I wish you all great health, luck and prosperity throughout the Year of Snake! 

This is my favourite and the most important festival for the Chinese! Throughout the entire period, families gather, juniors pay visits to the senior members of the families, children receive red packets (me me me! As long as I am not married I still get them!), lots of traditional cakes, sweets and snacks to eat, houses adorned with all sorts of colourful, symbolic festive flowers with the backdrop of dices rolling, mahjong pieces clattering and cards shuffling! Ohoh, and no matter where we are and who we bump into, we will definately generously pull out a string of 4-Chinese-character blessings which are mostly related to good luck and fortune!

Speaking of great fortune, I present to you these nice little tea eggs! I know those Chinese herbal tea houses and chain soup stores sell these tea eggs all year round but these eggs mean something to us. Tea eggs is a traditional must-have for Shanghainese every Chinese New Year. We call these brown, aromatic tea eggs yuen-bo, the traditional Chinese gold nuggets, outline of which I think, with a little bit of imagination, resembles an egg placed in a boat. Peeling off the cracked chestnut-color shell, you will find a pretty marble pattern printed on these yuen bos. They taste soooo good, I already had 3 yesterday! Yes, the egg yolks too, forget about the cholesterol, they are too good to be wasted!

Roselle Tea 洛神花茶

Roselle tea is extremely popular in Tai O. You can find them in almost every store there! Bottled up and cooled in mountains of ice, roselle tea is extremely rejuvenating.

Quite an eye-candy in itself, this ruby-coloured drink tastes tart like cranberry juice. Oh, in fact it tastes more like Ribena, the blackcurrant juice! But more to it, there is a faint, sweet air of freshness and earthiness, like the taste of those soft, fine fibre strands growing out of the ear of the corns. Thanks to Google, I finally know the proper name of these strands- corn stigma, 玉米鬚.

Apparently, roselle is a species of Hibiscus. It is well-known for its high Vitamin-C content, for reducing cholesterol and treating high blood pressure level.  I used fresh roselle to make my pro-health drink, but I was told by the market vendors that the same could also be produced out of dried calyces. You may also try making roselle jam by slowly simmering the flower with sugar.